


The Painted Lady

by ChainSmokesPens



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Flash Fic, Painting, contemporary fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:20:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29011182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChainSmokesPens/pseuds/ChainSmokesPens
Summary: Prompt: [WP] An artist falls in love again with his paintings of his deceased wife.





	The Painted Lady

Jeannette, just finishing up breakfast, took the tray into her hands and left for the master’s chambers. The other servants in the house looked at her with dread, their eyes somber, yet silently grateful that this task hadn’t been passed to them. Jeannette was always one of the lady’s favorites.  
Before she could reach the stairwell, Geoffrey fell into step beside her. While Jeannette was carrying a tray of waffles, fruits, and ham, Geoffrey’s tray held a blank palette, fresh tubes of paint and unused brushes on top of it.  
Every day for the past three months, the tubes, brushed, and palette were newly purchased. The first few days it was understandable. The first two weeks it was tolerable. After that, serious considerations were made amongst the staff regarding the allocations of the master’s wealth to paints, brushes, and palettes, each of which would only be partially used before being discarded at the end of the day.  
Her cheek stung, remembering what occurred when she suggesting reusing the materials. More than the strike across her face, she couldn’t forget the shrillness of her master’s voice as he screamed at her. “Would you pluck your meals from the garbage? Would you proceed to eat the meal with a used fork on a used dish? How dare you suggest something so vile of my beloved?”  
The two servants reached the master’s bedchamber, unsurprised to see that he wasn’t there. They eyed each other uncomfortably before making their way to the studio. Their trays trembled in their hands.  
The regularity of intercourse between the master and his late wife had been a question among the gossipy maidservants while she was alive. With her passing, Jeannette knew all too well what she could expect to find on a Saturday morning.  
The studio was massive, though seemed much smaller with the numerous portraits of the lady of the house everywhere. In many she was dressed in her usual finery, in some she was the queen of a foreign land, in some she was an angel, but every one of them was undeniable a masterpiece. A manifestation of a hitherto unknown talent of the master before her passing.  
As was expected, the master was curled up on the floor, one of the many portraits of his wife held tightly to him. He was without pants. And the beautiful painting in his arms was stained with his releases.  
He woke at the sound of people entering the room. He smirked up at the servants before turning to his wife. “It’s time to wake up my beloved,” he said, planting a gentle kiss on her lips. Onto her neck. Onto her chest.  
Then, he reeled back, revulsion pulled across his face. When she’d first witnessed this, Jeannette thought that having kissed the stain he’d made on the painting was the source of his disgust. But, as the weeks went on, she recognized her master’s true source of distress. With the painting stained, his wife was unrecognizable to him. The purity that she portrayed in the delicate artistry of her master’s hand and the soft-spoken words he spoke to her were gone. And, with the assuredness of the sun rising, the master’s verbal lashing followed.  
He slammed the portrait to the ground, shattering the ornate frame surrounding it. He spit on the image, stomping on it, screaming, “Whore! Jezebel! Where is my flower? Who are you?” until he’d exhausted himself, the art he’d created a heap of woodchips and fabric.  
The day would proceed ritualistically.  
It wasn’t Sunday, so the master wouldn’t be forced to bathe, though he would be forced to eat. All the while asking where his wife was. Had she woken up yet? Was she feeling alright? And Geoffrey, the stronger of the two servants, would lie unflinchingly.  
The master would then go to a blank easel, hugging and kissing it. He’d ask his wife is she slept well, and then, would get her ready for the day.  
The palette was all that his wife needed, everything that her maidservants could’ve provided lived within the tubes of paint.  
To rub the sleep from her eyes, the master would paint them a soft blue. He’d recite one of a number of poems she loved as he did so.  
For breakfast, she had decided, she would have strawberries. And so, her lips would be painted a vibrant red.  
Her hair would be brushed into existence with long, loving strokes of yellow, tinges of brown added for a more accurate result. Her bath would grant her a deep olive complexion, and the nails at the end of her long fingers would be painted a bright green—a color and placement that still boggled Jeannette.  
Once his wife was ready for the day, she would be framed and mounted on the wall, to sit in perpetual beauty until the time came for her master to sate himself. She looked at the shrapnel of the painting on the floor, then to Geoffrey, then aided her master out of the studio.


End file.
